The biggest railway and subway operator of Japan, Japan Railway Group (JR Group) which is used by millions of Japanese people on an everyday basis is now planning to add cryptocurrency payment options for its users. This step will eventually allow millions of Japanese citizen to make use of crypto as a payment mode for transportation. The Japan Railway Group is thinking of adding a crypto asset like bitcoin as a payment option.
ANN news mentions that JR Group is considering developing a cryptocurrency company, mostly believed to be an exchange in collaboration with an important bank to integrate cryptocurrencies.
If the JP Group carries the plan to the next stage to integrate cryptocurrencies into the Sucia card, which is the national public transport card used by the Japanese citizens for various payments also includes subway transactions, then it can become one of the biggest stimuli in the retain cryptocurrency adoption till today.
The new system of JR Group will allow the Sucia payment card issued by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East), topped-up with crypto. Sucia payment is a prepaid based e-money card which allows users to pay for both services and goods within Japan with digital currencies. According to company data, as on March 2018, they have issued 70 of these cards.
Japan's biggest railway is reportedly looking to add #cryptocurrency payments, and some reports suggest they're also planning to launch a #crypto exchangehttps://t.co/IMwbyLDo26
— Francisco Memoria (@FranciscoMemor) March 31, 2019
By establishing its own cryptocurrency company, JR Group will be able to achieve revenue through a new source in the form of transaction fees from the cryptocurrency payments that it deals with.
A report says that the cryptocurrency exchange will be known as Decurret. Decurret has already received a license from the Financial Services Agency of Japan (FSA) and allowed to carry out their operation in the country.
Decurret will start trading from April 16 and mostly use bitcoin, litecoin, bitcoin cash, and XRP trading pairs. Ether-based trading is expected to take place in June or July. Japanese yen and bitcoin will be used as the base currencies for the platform.
Growing cryptocurrency view of Japan
Despite the 2018 bear market, which observed the crypto space to lose more than 85 percent of its worth, the cryptocurrency view of Japan has not stopped increasing. In April 2017, Japan permitted the use of bitcoin, as a legal payment method and from then onwards new retailers started to welcome cryptocurrencies.
The largest electronic retailer of Japan, form more than a year onwards, Bic Camera has started accepting bitcoin, and it mentioned that there is growth in the use of bitcoin during previous year bear market.
The report also announced that the largest online retailer of Japan Rakuten, which is the local version of Amazon, even planned of introducing cryptocurrency payments and it is scheduled to launch its cryptocurrency exchanges once FSA has approved it.
Because of the huge mainstream awareness of crypto, Japan is an ideal market place for transport conglomerate to integrate cryptocurrencies.
